/ 23 March 2004

Canned journalism: When media vleis meets pap-arazzi reporting

Here’s the story of how a reporter got scooped by her own story — and how audiences get scammed by junk-food journalism.

Colleen Naudé, assistant editor of Finansies & Tegniek, opened her Sunday paper on February 1 … and opened her eyes in surprise. Earlier in the week, she had completed an article about the invention of an instant form of a South African staple.

Pap-en-vleis in a tin was the subject of her piece. It had been written for publication in F&T the following week. Now, there in Rapport, and under the byline of Helen Ueckermann, was an article that — in Naudé’s eyes — was to all intents and purposes her own story.

When Naudé’s original appeared in her magazine some days later, people not in the know but who had read the Sunday article would have been entitled to think the F&T journalist had taken her lead from Ueckermann.

”Scooped by my own story!” is Naudé’s sore comment on the saga.

The incident is not a case of clear-cut plagiarism at work, even though the Rapport and F&T stories cover very much the same facts. The reasons for the duplication are more complex — and a cautionary tale in the funny business of competitive journalism.

The action begins with Naudé gathering substantial information from Willem Steenkamp, inventor of the ready-to-go canned pap-en-vleis. Several e-mails go back and forth. In order to check she has the facts right, Naudé sends a draft of her article back to him for confirmation. All clear. She then dispatches her piece for editing and publication.

The reason Rapport ambushed her, Naudé believes, is most likely because Steenkamp had sent her report on to Ueckermann who used it for the Sunday paper.

However, Ueckermann gives a slightly different account of what happened. She says she heard about the story long before, and had coincidentally decided to follow it up the same week that Naudé was preparing her piece for F&T.

The Rapport journalist says she independently contacted Steenkamp, who then sent her information, which also included answers which he had originally sent to Naudé. She did not, says Ueckermann, receive the whole article as such.

What did she think about the windfall of information that had been given in response to questions sent to Steenkamp by a rival journalist?

”Of course I was happy to scoop her, what do you want me to do?”

And she volunteers the remark: ”Ethics is a matter of whether you can get away with it — it shouldn’t be like that, but it is.”

Pap-arazzi morality, perhaps?

Ueckermann says if the tables had been turned, she would not have minded niche magazine F&T scooping large-circulation Rapport. But because it was the other way around, she can empathise with Naudé’s unhappiness.

From an analysis of her Rapport article, it is evident that Ueckermann did not use Steenkamp’s answers to Naudé verbatim. Instead, she appears to have paraphrased or utilised the points to get him to restate his answers using different words. While there are some items not in the F&T article, most of the information is mirrored by Rapport.

A mix of anger and amusement characterises Naudé’s attitude to the whole affair. After all, she did the work of eliciting the information, but Ueckermann got the credit.

The Rapport journalist plays things down, pointing out that the pap-en-vleis break was not a huge scoop. That’s true, but there are deeper issues involved.

The incident reflects a competitive media environment. Classically, journalists are expected to break news — even at each other’s expense. It’s a reality that, as Ueckermann admits, doesn’t square too well with ethics. There is an intrinsic tension to the matter, and how it gets resolved impacts on the moral standing of the media.

Another tension arises from the fact that journalists are expected to keep up with key stories in the news — and yet do them differently to their peers. Hence Naudé’s annoyance at the inevitable impression that her belatedly published story simply echoed facts put in the public domain by another journalist.

So strong is the media quest for differentiation that sometimes a major story will be entirely ignored by an outlet if it cannot get a fresh angle on the matter. No medium likes to tell readers about news carried by a competitor when it is unable to take the tale any further.

However, the result of this drive for distinctiveness can sometimes be dubiously different interpretations of the same news. Take the following headlines last week — all based on the same press briefing:

  • Vodacom sets sights on Nigerian market (Business Day)
  • Vodacom’s Nigerian safari put on hold (ThisDay)
  • Vodacom changes tack in hunt for Nigerian tie-up (Business Report)

What really was the correct story? It’s hard to tell — especially if you only read one paper. The same verdict must go to last week’s divergent coverage on whether Statistics South Africa’s latest figures show a fall in the real rate of joblessness.

On the other hand, it doesn’t always help to read several publications. Because all too often there’s a sameness in the stories they carry. Indeed, one problem with Ueckermann’s article is that it uncovered very little new information about the story.

This point is an indictment of unoriginal journalism. Ueckermann, however, is not exceptional in this regard. She did what too many reporters do — simply reflect to readers the information they’re given by sources, with inadequate reflection on what they are doing.

There may be some rewording, and perhaps the order gets changed, but there’s little professional journalistic processing. The effect is that journalists function as transmission belts rather than as independent assessors.

At worst, press releases are put forward without any scrutiny of — or signal about — the propagandistic purposes of their authors. At best, no new value is added to a body of information received and uncritically regurgitated across several media.

The results are evident in a comparison of stories that are common to many outlets. Next time you read a story with a hint of PR in it, check if the same info is also in a competing publication. Chances are, you’ll find it there — cosmetic changes or not.

To really stand out, a medium should put its own stamp on what it releases for publication — but without creating confusion as in the Vodacom-Nigeria and unemployment stories.

My advice to Ueckermann: add your own value and ask your own questions, whether or not an experienced professional is the originator of that media-friendly information in your mailbox. Wouldn’t you have preferred to scoop Naudé with entirely different data about Steenkamp’s fast food venture? And to enrich readers with a wider range of info on the topic?

Instead, what we have is archetypal case of canned journalism, a relatively info-impoverished public, and a story behind the story that undermines media credibility more broadly.

E-mail Guy Berger directly if you have a question about this article.

Guy Berger is head of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University and deputy chair of the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef). He was recently nominated for the World Technology Awards.